Ege Tıp Dergisi

Öz

Positive psychology is a new psychology approach which is opposed to explain human behaviour within a disease model framework that repairing damage. This approach, focuses on the positive individual traits of normal human behaviour. In this context, it is concerned with the experiences, virtues that make life most worth living. Accordingly, happiness, well-being, altruism, life satisfaction, optimismhave been the most intriguing research subjects in positive psychology. Positive psychologydoes not only provides with information about normal human behaviour, but also makes recommendations for protection of mental health by developing intervention methods. These methods which have been developed to increase happiness, well-being, life satisfaction, alsohave been applied in elderly people to protect their mental health. The aim of this report is to present whether positive psychological approach and interventions are effective for elderly people to protect their mental health. In the first section, the basic principles, history and research areas of positive psychology are presented; in the second and third section, the basic subjects, happiness and well being are discussed with regards to protect mental health and inthe last section, the intervention methods of positive psychologyfor elderly are presented with related literature reports.